ABSTRACT ? PLANNING AND EVALUATION The goal of SBMRI Cancer Center's planning process is to strategize and prioritize programmatic development, intra- and inter-programmatic activities, and Center-wide activities to enable the Center to fulfill its vision of making paradigm-shifting discoveries that will underlie novel therapeutic modalities by creating, translating, and disseminating exceptional cancer basic science. To this end SBMRI Cancer Center has established a coordinated and multilayered planning and evaluation process. The de facto Cancer Center Executive Committee is the Cancer Center Leadership Team (CCLT) chaired by the Center Director and comprising the Deputy Director, the three Associate Directors (Shared Resources, Education and Mentoring, and Administration), and the three Program Leaders, who provide scientific guidance, direction, and advice to the Center Director. The CCLT receives input from the Shared Resources Team chaired by the Associate Director for Shared Resources, and the Administrative Team chaired by the Associate Director for Administration. Advice on programmatic and thematic development, recruitment, and funding of pilot projects is solicited from the Cancer Center External Advisory Board (EAB) through an annual meeting and on an as- needed basis. The Cancer Center Internal Scientific Advisory Committee (IAC) performs 6-monthly evaluations of the Cancer Center's scientific direction and achievements. Review showed that the goals of the 2009 SBMRI Cancer Center 5-year Strategic Plan were fully achieved in terms of recruitment (9 new faculty), including Dr. Powis as Cancer Center Director; reorganization from 4 to 3 programs; a new developing Shared Resource, Cancer Metabolism; and 18 pilot grant awards. A new Cancer Center 5-year Strategic Plan was developed at a retreat attended by nearly all Center members in December 2013, which established future scientific direction for the Programs and target areas for the recruitment. The new Strategic Plan is a shared- governance document that combines bottom-up input from the SBMRI Cancer Center faculty with elements of top-down planning by the Cancer Center Director and CCLT, and is in accordance with SBMRI's institutional 10-year vision of building on institutional existing strengths in research discovery (new targets) and early small molecule lead discovery (therapeutics). The CCLT holds monthly meetings at which, among other activities, it evaluates the Center's progress in achieving goals established by the 5-year Strategic Plan in areas including education, team science, and minority representation. Future growth areas identified by the Strategic Plan are cancer metabolism and stress, tumor dormancy and resistance, and epigenomics, while needed resources were identified as greater access to clinical samples, more bioinformatics, and support for PDX models. Progress toward providing for these needs has begun, particularly access to human tissues and PDX mouse models. 10 recruitments, mostly junior faculty, are planned in the next grant period, with several recruitments already underway for the coming year, in many cases as joint recruitments by two or more Programs.